Gmelina lecomtei Dop - VERBENACEAE

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Botanical descriptions Habitat and ecology Distribution

Botanical descriptions :

Diagnostic characters : Deciduous trees, bark finely fissured. Leaves simple, opposite, broadly ovate, below glaucous. Primary nerves basally trinerved. Petiole long with two glands at the top. Inflorescence terminal, flowers with a tubular corolla, pinkish purple with yellow lower petal. Fruit a drupe seeds numerous.
Habit : Deciduous tree 12 m. tall, up to 15 cm. in diameter.
Trunk & bark : Bark finely fissured, grey brown, outer bark thin, brown, inner bark darkish brown, sapwood white.
Branches and branchlets or twigs : Branches terete, tomentose, then turning glabrous, yellowish-grey, brownish when dry, strongly lenticellate.
Exudates : Exudate absent.
Leaves : Simple leaves, opposite, broadly elliptic 9-18 x 10-22 cm. in length, apex acuminate, base rounded, margin entire, young leaves brownish, blade coriaceous, glaucous below with many glands near the base. 3-primary basal veins.
Midrib flat above, prominent below, secondary veins oblique, widely parallel, tertiary veins horizontal, petiole up to 6-7 cm. long.
Inflorescences or flowers : Terminal inflorescence (flowers grouped in a panicle) tomentose yellow up to 20 cm. long, bract leaf like shaped, caducous, flower pink purple, lip, strikingly yellow, irregular flower, pedicels longer than 0.5 cm long.
Fruits : Fruit solitary, drupe, globose or ovoid, glabrous. Young fruit green then turning yellow, partly lenticellate, about 3-4 cm. wide.
Seeds : Seeds numerous. .

Habitat and ecology :

In evergreen or rainforest from 500 to 600 m. altitude.

Distribution :

Laos and Vietnam.

Remark/notes/uses :
No known uses.

Specimens studied :
BT 501 (Herbarium of Faculty of Sciences-NUoL, NHN-Leiden and CIRAD-Montpellier).

Literature :
Flore Générale de l’Indochine, Vol.4, Fasc. 6. Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Laboratoire de Phanérogamie, Paris, France.

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